IDFA is the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam that is probably the biggest and most important doc fest of the year with over 300 films, a market of films for sale, web based docs on view and many side events.
This year was distinguised by a number of very intense, powerful films involving war and trauma from Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow up to The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence, about an eye doctor who confronts former death squad leaders and their families at no small amount of rish to himself, Drone, on the US drone war and a “pilot” who discusses it and the trauma he’s suffered, and Of Men and War, an amazingly personal story of Iraqi vets working out their trauma in a unique program based in Napa Valley. Their tales of horrific events they witnessed or perpetrated is about as harrowing as anything imaginable and their guilt, shame, anger and profound desire to heal is breathtakingly intense. It’s one of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen; I had a chance to do a Q&A with the director after the screening and he spoke movingly of the relationships he built with the men and of their struggles to regain their souls and honor their families. He made a previous film, De Guerre Lasses (Living Afterwords: Words of Women) about women and war in Bosnia, and this one looks at men as casualties of war. No U.S. distribution yet but watch for it. It won the Festival Award for Best Feature Length Documentary and will no doubt win more awards in the days ahead.